Wondering if we should sell our homes or rent them?

[Bruce Cline]

My fiancé and I had planned to sell our homes late spring/early summer with plans to build a home in a year or so. (Texas gulf coast). Our thought was that we needed to strike while the iron was hot to maximize our profit during this seller’s market.

Her home has no mortgage and is valued around 420k. My home is valued around 440k with a 190k balance. Both homes need updates like carpet, painting.

With lumber and building costs so high, our thought process has changed. We are now considering renting both our homes while we wait to build. (We plan to move into her parents 2nd home to be near them to assist them as needed and will only be paying a small amount to cover taxes, insurance while we stay there).

We will monitor the market and plan to build once we see costs come down a bit. We are thinking perhaps instead of selling we pull out equity from each home to build once ready and continue renting the 2 homes that will ideally become assets that are essentially paying for our new home.

We are nervous. We’ve never been investment property owners and are reluctant. Personally, I like the idea of holding these 2 homes as growing assets but we are uncertain about being out of town landlords, tenant nightmares, maintenance and repairs, etc.

Any insight and advice you can offer is appreciated.